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Inner arch repairs and centre sill section

01-03-2015, 07:48 PM

I need to repair the inner arches on my 16v.

The outers were done back in 1999 and are still very sound.
The outer sills were also done and are still very sound.

I have cut out the rotten metal and have cut an inner repair panel to fit the section needed, drivers side only needs front half repair as rear half was patched before. Passenger side needs full inner replacement, however as the car is currently lying on it's side I have started on the drivers side.

I have noticed that inside the sill section the inner centre section on the sills has rotted, It needs to be repaired but I don't really want to cut a good outer sill to get at it (but if needs must).

1. Could I repair it from the inside rear where the rear door card covers?

2. The inner arch panel I have cut to fit but the lip does not sit flush with the outer arch lip, so I was thinking of drilling a series of holes through the outer lip to puddle weld the outer lip to inner before grinding the inner lip back to match the outer lip.

Didn't have a camera handy and it was dark when I packed away so will try and get some pics tomorrow.

I know many people on here would have done this before so any advise / help is greatly appreciated.

Comment

for the same reasons as previous reply (rear seat bases raised) you can actually see the back of the inner sills from under the car, the rear 18 inches or so, depends how much needs replacing.

just to confuse things there's also a third sill at the rear which is originally welded to the outter sill and the rear of the inner sill, its part of the C pillar which runs down and gets integrated (quite important structural bit of an astra but 9 times out of 10 is rusted away)

all the bit painted grey is the inner sill, fuel tank is just above (joy!)

the third skin from the C pillar you can see here, with the big swaged hole in it